Is Paris Serene?
by Mana7
Summary: Post Carter Est Amoureux. What was he thinking? Hints of Carby.


Title: Is Paris Serene?

Author: Mana

Disclaimer: my idea, definitely not my characters.

Spoilers: Through 11.21 Carter Est Amoureux

Rating: T

Summary: Post Carter Est Amoureux. What was he thinking? Hints of Carby.

Author's Note: This is a post-ep I began after 11.19 Ruby Redux. Clearly, I didn't get it done very quickly. So it also became a post-ep for 11.20 and 11.21. Now I'm trying to get it posted before 11.22. There might be a follow-up after that one, depending on how inspired I am. Anyway, enjoy. It seems as if we've had far too few post-eps lately.

"God," the speaker's voice rang.

"Grand me the serenity," chorused the room, and one voice stood out to him. Good, she'd come again.

"To accept the things I cannot change;" he strained to make his voice heard above the rest, to alert her that he too had remembered.

"The courage to change the things I can." His voice melted along with the others into the echo of anonymity. He couldn't catch her eye.

"And the wisdom to know the difference."

He liked to think that when she spoke—to confess, to wonder, to worry and to laugh—she intended him as her listener. At least, when he spoke, his words were meant for her. The fact that she was there, Monday after Monday, eight-o-clock at the church, made him wonder if maybe she knew.

The first time, as she'd arisen from the cluster of chairs and walked to the podium, he'd been so surprised he'd gasped. (Surprise was his definition). At the end of the meeting, she hustled out of the room. Maybe she hadn't seen him. The second time, he'd been careful to make deliberate eye contact as he'd shared, telling his story in a heartfelt manner that only she could know was false. He'd expected her to stop him, as he'd walked so near to her when he exited that she surely saw him. But he was past her and on the sidewalk and she was still inside with her coffee, chatting with Jill.

Perhaps it was supposed to be their secret—a secret they couldn't even tell each other. Each week she came, and each week he gave a slightly more accurate account of the goings-on in his life, hoping to inspire her to ask him for more. Some weeks ago, he'd allowed a tear to slide along the length of his nose as he spoke, repressing the urge to hide it from his concerned audience. Tonight, he'd sobbed. "It feels like there's no feeling," he'd announced to one supportive face in particular. "Except it's the lack of feeling that hurts the most."

Of course, her stories had always been genuine. The first week, he'd been more shocked when he heard her than he had been when she'd stood up. The self-guarded woman he'd known told roomfuls of people (and him) of her relationship with a younger man. Tonight, she was candid: the man had returned from a weeklong trip; she was disappointed.

Carter shrugged on his winter coat, still-damp underarms reminding him that now it was spring.

"Heavy coat there, buddy."

Carter nodded.

"You know, we just got in a shipment of spring coats today." Bob managed Carter's least favorite department store.

"Discount for you," he whispered with a wink.

Carter nodded.

"Going home?" Bob asked.

And then she brushed past. "Hospital's paging," he heard her tell Liz.

"Yeah," Carter turned to the man beside him. "You want a ride?"

Bob smiled. "Sure."

"I just got the Jeep fixed. Carburetor was busted again." Carter lovingly patted the hood of the car. "I knew it! The guy said—"

"Don't even pretend you know what a carburetor is, old man," Bob cracked.

"But—"

"And don't think I missed what just happened back there."

Carter started the engine just then, pretending the noise had overshadowed the man's latter comment.

"What?"

Bob laughed. "With Abby."

"Nothing happened with Abby."

"Every fiber of your tuxedo was focused on her. Hell, you even ignored me!"

"I always ignore you."

Bob grunted and leaned forward, tuning the radio to basketball. "Rooting for the Bulls?"

The next day he saw her too many times to ignore. Their patient was one he remembered well. Abby out-did the chief of surgery in determining proper care for the ailing man, and as he mediated between her and his bosses, Carter was forced to communicate with Abby more than he had in months. The ordeal stretched into an entire shift; by night, he had too much to say to keep silent. Monday night, after all, was a whole week away.

In the hallway, he'd nudged her arm, hoping to signal that he wanted conversation. She walked away (or he drove her away). After years of silence, maybe there was nothing to say. He sensed this wasn't true.

Without even a shared glance she somehow urged him to talk. They were in the ambulance bay, and this time it'd been him who walked away. And then he stopped.

Carter didn't tell her much. Just a little story, laced with doctor-style wisdom, about a time he'd lied ten years ago. He poured his coffee onto the asphalt as he spoke, tossing the cup into the basketball hoop when it was empty. (Naturally, when it clattered to the ground short of a point, he saw her smile). The arrival of an ambulance silenced him.

But even the most disastrous of traumas couldn't quiet the roar in the back of his head, a sound that had resumed its monologue as a whisper at their first Monday meeting, months ago. Only one thing could drown out the sound. He called her that night.

"Hi!" her voice twinkled through the phone line. "How was your day?"

In his answer he left out the part about Ruby, the old patient.

"And you?" he asked, forcing himself, he realized, to be interested. "How's the clinic?"

That week, the march to Monday dragged like never before. A small part of him knew this was because he anticipated the meeting with far more eagerness than he had ever done. With each passing event, he planned the way he'd relate it to the crowd in the small back room of the church.

"I got tenure," he'd say, and wait for the applause. "And then I destroyed the ambition of an old friend."

Maybe he would tell them about Susan first. Or about his meeting with the chiefs of staff. He might include the part where he told Kem—and she had congratulated him wholeheartedly (why wasn't she disappointed now that he was tied to Chicago permanently?) But no matter which details he decided to share, there was one line of the story he'd certainly include—a message.

When Monday finally arrived, he opened the church door ten minutes early. The room was empty. So he busied himself setting up folding chairs and fiddled with the coffee pot. When the secretary came, a woman with a face alarmingly similar to that of a vole, he helped her search through cupboards for the missing collection baskets. Their search was fruitless; when the traditions were read, they passed around hats instead.

Minutes later, Carter hardly noticed the hats, nor the white sweat stains adorning them. All of his attention was preoccupied by something else. Where was she?

Behind him, two of Abby's friends noticed her absence too.

"Maybe she's stuck at the hospital," they said.

Carter squirmed. She'd had the day off today.

When he shared, she still hadn't arrived, although several others had, rattling the door so that Carter's nerves leapt then fell, as every entering person was a stranger. The version of his promotion he told was more drawn out than any he had envisioned, a stalling tactic so that she would be there when he told the important part. After several minutes, he could not reasonably take more time.

"That's it," he smiled, shrugging. "Big week." Some faces smiled back at him. He moved to go back to his seat.

"Oh, and I finally talked with an old friend."

Carter sighed. The line had been wasted. Slowly, he walked back to work. Afterward, he called Kem.

As long as he could, he refrained from asking Abby where she had been. Such a question would break the code, he knew, though every time he saw her during the subsequent days, asking was so much at the forefront of his mind he was afraid it'd pop out in a Freudian slip. Abby gave no indication of why she had not been present, nor did she seem to realize any explanation was due.

It was because of this that Carter was stunned when she approached him on Friday morning. That morning a project update meeting had been held at the site where construction of the new wing of the hospital had begun. The meeting had been open to all County General staff, but really, only the members of the board attended. Still, Abby must have known he'd be there— he came to assume she'd sought him deliberately.

"Who's Joshua?" she asked. The question was surprising because of her tone—it sounded as though she thought she ought to have known the names of Carter's extended family. He riffled quickly through his mind, trying to recall the last time she had acknowledged this degree of familiarity with him. In a moment he chided himself—when had he last admitted such knowledge of her? After a second's reluctance, he replied "Joshua is what Kem and I were going to name our son."

"You're doing a good thing, John," Abby said, and changed the subject, shying from the intimate conversation he challenged her to, or perhaps not recognizing the challenge. Instead she told him about a patient.

"Are you going to work right now?" Carter asked, in a moment of lull.

Abby nodded, and he led her in turning a corner, shifting the direction in which they walked toward the hospital. Silence ensued.

"Coffee?"

"Please," she laughed. "I still haven't caught up since that double yesterday."

Carter made a joke at the new Chief Resident's expense—a joke he made a policy of avoiding around interns.

As he paid the man at the coffee cart, Abby's expression changed from joking to determined. She must have spent the quiet instant in thought.

"I was with Jake," she said in lieu of "thanks."

Carter tried not to frown. "What?"

"His nephew got baptized, and he's the godfather, and his whole family was there. I had to go."

"Oh." Carter swallowed his coffee slowly, wondering what he should say. "Was it fun?"

Abby chuckled, sarcastically as usual. "Not really. I'm not so into the church thing."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'm always the one who screws up, or sneezes, who can't suppress her blasphemous thoughts."

Laughing, Carter stopped, waiting for a red light to turn. "So how'd you wreck it this time?"

And though she was mad at Jake and frustrated by Morris, worried about her upcoming shift which she knew would go horribly, and distressed that Carter had turned the serious conversation she had planned into a joke, Abby laughed too. "How didn't I wreck it?"

"John?" she said once they were on the other side of the street. "I'm telling you because that was Monday. I didn't come because I was with Jake."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, daring her to acknowledge the subject they'd never broached.

"Monday?"

"Come on," Abby nudged him sheepishly. "Liz and Bob said you were frantic when I didn't show."

Carter scoffed. "I'd hardly call it 'frantic'"

"Astounded? Appalled?" she sipped her coffee trying desperately to steer the conversation away from the fun she could not help poking at him. "Distraught?"

Glancing to the ground, Carter cleared his throat. "Disappointed."

"Oh." Abby was taken aback. "Well, I'm sorry."

She must have thought a conversing relationship had been reestablished that morning. Hours later when he received a phone call from Dr. McClurgy in Matenda, alerting him that Kem had fled to Paris to care for her suddenly ill mother, Abby approached him.

With Abby following him into the lounge to ask where he was going and why and for how long, Carter's sudden burst of panic turned to exasperation with her. He wished she weren't in the lounge right now, attempting to reason him out of launching himself across the Atlantic. Kem needed him. He would lift her out of depression, and use a heightened sense of purpose to cure her mother. Afterward, Kem would see that he could offer the support he'd declined to give last year. She would support him in return. Abby's persistent questioning was making him feel—guilty.

So he left. Before he could doubt himself.

Carter spent seven hours on the plane convincing himself how necessary he was to Kem, envisioning her reaction to his arrival. For the rest of the flight he slept. Interns weren't the only ones losing sleep lately.

Upon landing in Paris he caught a cab and, using bits of broken French he'd learned in Africa, directed the driver to the hospital. Clattering down narrow back streets, as traffic was heavy on the main roads, the ride took nearly an hour. Carter took this time to alternate between sighing, eyes closed, head back on the seat, and staring out the window. Paris was vaguely familiar—he'd come here several times as a child—but there was a drab element of dreariness he failed to remember from his previous visits. Perhaps this was only evident because of the circumstances in which he now arrived.

"Zut!" a woman yelled as the cab driver recklessly pulled up in the hospital drive, nearly knocking into her.

Carter nodded, "Merci," and handed the driver a stack of Euros. The cab zoomed away as haphazardly as it had arrived, leaving Carter alone at the foot of the looming building. To steady himself, he took a breath and entered.

With difficulty, he managed to decipher enough to find Kem's mother's room. Kem was not there. Her mother was sleeping. Carter almost laughed at himself for imagining so many ridiculous reunions. Of course it would happen in this unexciting way.

He checked her mother's IV quietly, trying to recognize the specifics of her condition by examining its treatment. Saline, morphine—no antibiotics. Hearing approaching footsteps, he stepped into the hall in search of a doctor. Instead, the footsteps had belonged to Kem. Upon seeing him, she did not attempt to hide her puzzled expression.

"John," she called. "You should have told me you were coming."

All Carter could think was that needing to be warned could only signify one thing. A moment later, a man came into Carter's view in the same direction from which Kem had entered. The man was Michel, Kem's boyfriend.

At once, Carter could do nothing but stumble. Kem needed him. He'd come here for—what? For Kem, he recalled declaring. Besides, he needed her, regardless of this other man. Had his parents' main goal in his upbringing not been developing refined manners, Carter would have fled by now. He stayed, to converse idly with Kem and her mother.

Carter tried what he could to reclaim Kem, but she seemed resigned to life without him. Still, she insisted he stay in Paris for the week. "It'll be fun," she assured him. This version of fun was very awkward.

Two evenings after his arrival, Carter chewed a dry room service sandwich in his hotel room. This day, like the others, had been spent by Kem dragging him around Paris, insisting that he appreciate the city. The city was decent, he contended, but they had more important matters to discuss. Carter had mentioned their future at the Pompidou center, three parks, the Arc de Triomphe, and by the river several times. Clinging to a woman who clearly didn't want him, Carter felt like a pesky child. Finally, as they lunched on a bench outside the hospital, he thought Kem might relent.

"Okay," she set down her water bottle. "So what if we get back together?"

"Yeah?" he swallowed a bite in surprise.

"What would happen?" Kem asked.

Carter smiled. "I don't know."

"You've thought about it though, right?" She brushed a stray hair from her lips and chewed another bite, waiting.

Clearing his throat, Carter hesitated. "Um, yeah."

"Me too."

"What about Michel?" He waited, willing her to denounce the other man.

"Yeah, what about Michel?" The man they'd spoken about leaned over the back of the bench to embrace Kem from behind.

"I was just telling John about that time at Freddie's birthday," she smiled.

"With the milk?" Michel laughed. "We were what, eleven?"

Carter laughed too, pretending to have some idea about Freddie's eleventh birthday.

"Sorry I'm late," Michel told Kem, ignoring Carter's attempt to join in.

After Michel's arrival, the conversation had not resumed. Now, contemplating while he ate his informal supper, Carter wondered if it ever would. He vowed not to initiate such a talk again himself. If she actually wanted to discuss their future, Kem would come to him. At the moment, Carter was too exhausted to even ponder.

He flicked on the television, but quickly snapped it off again in disgust. "Walker Texas Ranger," dubbed into French. With a sigh, he allowed himself to ease back against the pillows. Maybe Abby had been correct in assuming this trip wouldn't be worthwhile. Lucky guess, he determined with a grumble. How could Abby have known?

Though his eyes closed, Carter resolved to remain awake. If he slept now, he'd only wake up earlier, and then he'd have to begin filling tomorrow all over again. He rolled over to check the clock and see just how early it really was. Eight' o'clock. Monday. For an instant, Carter's heart raced. Should he call her? Would that be weird? Expected? But what would they talk about? Surely Abby didn't want to hear about Kem. If he called, she wouldn't be able to talk anyway, for she'd be in the meeting. Or maybe she wouldn't go with him gone. Carter's hand hovered over the phone. Then, in an split second of clarity, he remembered. In Chicago it was only one in the afternoon.

Tears surfaced in the rims of Carter's eyes. He was appalled to discover the degree of his disappointment. Maybe this wasn't a reaction to his realization. Perhaps this emotion was a culmination of all the sensations he'd experienced during the past week.

He'd encountered far worse occasions in his life. Why did this one seem to be so terrible?

"God," he groaned to himself, and the word resonated in his memory.

"Grant me the serenity," he whispered into his hand. The hand would muffle the embarrassment of talking to himself aloud. "To accept the things I cannot change." Death, he thought, morbidly. "The courage to change the things I can." Here, a vision of an airplane emerged in Carter's consciousness. "And the wisdom to know the difference." Closing his eyes again time, he allowed sleep to overhaul thought.


End file.
